The purpose of indwelling gastric tube

Many times, a gastric tube needs to be left in place after it is inserted into the patient's body. There are many reasons for this, such as providing food or medicine to the patient through the gastric tube. For patients with indwelling gastric tubes, relatives must provide appropriate care to ensure that treatment or care can proceed normally.

Providing food or medicine through a gastric tube to people who cannot eat by mouth, such as those in a coma, those with oral diseases, those who refuse to eat, premature infants and those in critical condition.

1. Enteral nutrition is prepared according to the patient's condition and doctor's instructions to meet the patient's body needs. The temperature is 38~40℃, no more than 200ml is injected each time, and the interval time is not less than 2h. Before each injection, the gastric contents are withdrawn. This can be used to observe the color of the gastric contents and whether there is bleeding, and the amount can also be observed. If the withdrawn fluid is more than 150ml of the food injected last time, the injection should be stopped, the doctor should be notified, and the patient's condition should be observed to see if there is abdominal distension. This can also prevent reflux of gastric contents that may cause suffocation.

2. Continuous gastrointestinal decompression can prevent and treat abdominal distension and abdominal pain caused by certain diseases and relieve symptoms. It is often used for patients with acute pancreatitis and those with abdominal pain to be diagnosed.

3. Intermittent suction gastric lavage to treat patients with oral drug poisoning. Repeated gastric lavage with antidote can directly destroy the poison and reduce its absorption. Continuous negative pressure drainage can also reduce the rebound caused by the re-excretion of toxins absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract, thereby alleviating the symptoms of poisoning.

4. For the treatment of gastrointestinal bleeding

One is to directly inject hemostatic drugs. Usually, 20 mg of norepinephrine is added to 250 ml of normal saline, and 50 ml is injected into the gastric tube at a time. The time for the next injection is determined according to the severity of the bleeding.

The second method is to inject ice saline for gastric lavage. 1000ml of normal saline refrigerated at 4℃ is injected in several times. During the injection, observe the patient's reaction to see if there is discomfort or bleeding caused by cold stimulation. Connect a negative pressure drainage device to observe the bleeding situation and reduce the stimulation of digestive juices.